THE HOUSE WAS unusually quiet, now that school had started again. Usually Genya or Kataryna would distract him from his unhappy thoughts, but this day had seemed to loom on forever. Once his daughter and son-in-law had left for their respective jobs, and the girls had caught the bus to school, Danylo sat down at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and tried to read the paper, but the words seemed just a blur.
A swirl of lemony steam from the tea drifted to his nostrils, and an image of Danylo's wife filled his mind. Nadiya, or Hope in English, had loved lemon in her tea. And once they had moved to Canada, she would add a little bit of lemon juice to the water when she rinsed her hair. He loved holding her close and burying his face in her hair. In the spring, when the pain of losing her was still too sharp to bear, this memory would have caused him sorrow, but now it comforted him. He breathed in the scent of lemony tea and felt the spirit of Nadiya around him.
He spent the afternoon on his hands and knees in his daughter's garden, digging up potatoes. He preferred his own garden to this tiny one, but with Nadiya's illness and death in the spring, he'd had neither the time nor the heart to plant it. He still found going back to his own house painful. He was thankful that his daughter and son-in-law suggested he live with them for a while, and he was grateful that his daughter had the foresight in the spring to plant this small plot to keep him busy now.
He dug each potato carefully with a trowel, and set each one in the basket. When the basket was full, he set each potato, side by side, out on the window ledge of the summer kitchen and along the stone ledge of the patio to dry out in the sun. When they were dry, he would take each one and gently brush off the dirt with a towel. They stored better if they weren't washed.
He looked down the street for the girls' bus, wondering if this first day of school would be a short one. He was anxious to hear about Kataryna's first day at the new school. After all she had been through, he prayed that this year would be a smooth transition for her.
He did not have the same worries about Genya, or Jenny as her friends called her. Genya always landed on her feet. She was the perfect Ukrainian granddaughter: beautiful in a blonde and blue-eyed way, with a bright smile and easy grace. She was his malenka ptashka — his little bird. She was in her last year of high school on the top of the honour roll and had set her sights on studying medicine. Everything seemed to come easily to Genya. He was grateful that she didn't seem to mind moving out of her bedroom and into Kataryna's so that he could live with them for a bit.
Kataryna, on the other hand, always did things the hard way. She was his zolota zhabka — or golden frog. And just as the girl in the fairy tale had understood that on the inside the golden frog was a prince, Danylo knew that Kataryna was very special. She was almost blind without her glasses and when she was little, she had broken more pairs than he could count. Teaching her how to ride a bike was like pulling teeth, and he could barely remember her without bruises and scrapes on her skinny legs and arms. Unlike her older sister, Kataryna was inconsistent in school, and she never grew tall. But it was Kataryna who visited the hospice every day when Nadiya was dying. It was Kataryna who sensed intuitively when her presence would be a comfort.
The crunch of gravel in the driveway brought Danylo out of his thoughts. He looked up and saw a ratty blue Volvo pulling up. The passenger door opened and out stepped Genya. "See you later, Karen," she called to the driver of the car, then closed the door and loped up to the back steps of the house.
Before opening the door, Genya peered out into the back yard. "Are you out here, Dido?" she called out in Ukrainian.
"I am here digging potatoes, malenka ptashka" called Danylo. He watched as his older granddaughter shaded her eyes from the sun and regarded him from the porch.
"Would you like me to help you finish up?" she asked.
"Thank you, but no," he replied. "I'll be done soon."
"I'll start supper, then," she called back, then went inside.
Not too long after that, the school bus dropped Kataryna off at the corner.